


Ease that's inglorious

by Lilliburlero



Category: The Comfortable Courtesan - Madame C- C-
Genre: Class Differences, Gen, Highland Clearances, Hunting, M/M, Scotland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:17:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9804194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: Mr MacD- attends a disagreeable house-party in the the Highlands.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elstaplador](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/gifts).



**Lot 42: from the Ferraby collection.**

**Correspondence, from Mr Alexander MacDonald to Lady Bexbury, and related papers, summer/autumn 1821. Five letters and loose leaves apparently from a commonplace book, relating to a house party on the estate of Aeneas Ranaldson Macdonell of Invergarry. Estimate £250-400. Sample, with characteristically amateurish pen-and-ink self-portrait, reproduced below.**

Dear Clorinda―

having inscribed that most heartening of salutations, I found myself for quite a quarter-hour at a loss to write another word, for thinking that did the Much Hon. A― Macd― of I― know that the secretary of his honour’d guest presum’d so to address Lady B―, he would either have the poor wretch whippt, or boisterously congratulate him upon his siege of a fair citadel, & I confess I know not which I could easyer support. No, I do―but I will leave it to you to guess.

I write from my little chamber in I― House, that I describ'd to you in my last, and must report it continues quite unsuitable as a setting for horrid tales. I am conscious that its relative modernity & salubrity is intended in the character of a reproach by a True Highlander to a weakly, bespectacled, Kirk-ridden, Lallans-gabbling cheese-rind-eater, thin of shank and sunk of breast, but while HL suffers yet no head-cold nor percussing cough from his gusty apartment in the main Fortification, I would not willingly change with him, tho’ ‘tis a dismal fash, to walk each morning nearly half a mile thro’ corridors and across a driech and miry Stable-court to discover does he need any scrieving done.

This morning I am spared that travail, for he departed at dawn with our host and his Tail of retainers, all (not HL!) clad in picturesque Highland garb, to hunt deer, their especial object being an Hart-Royal of unusual majesty, the precise dimensions of whose Brow, Bey and Tray were the chief Topick of conversation at dinner last night, after the withdrawall of the ladies. I regret I shall not see the magnificent beast alive, and rather fear I shall see him dead & brittl’d. Doubtless this reveals a Sensibility unmanly in me, for tho’ ‘tis held scant compromize of virility to weep for the Stag, ‘tis considered entire womanish to attempt avert tears by preserving his life. The party is not expected back even at nightfall, for it is Macd― of I―’s boast that he follows the Quarry for days and nights together, when dark overtakes him sleeping in his Plaid, an article that doubtless makes a drier couch than those of his followers, who are obliged to hoist him upon their shoulders when they ford a tract of water. I know HL is I―’s equal in strength and activity, though not in bulk of muscle, but think he will be almost as glad as I, when recover’d from this Chevy Chase, that cannot but exhaust even the most energetic of men, to take his quittance of this place. O, best & wisest of Sibyls! contumely directed at one’s own person is as the midge’s bite (they are not now so frequent as in June), but to perceave another constrained by the Forms of Society from protesting it as he would wish is a very heart’s wound, the more so when that other has undergone no apprenticeship like to one's own in the forbearance of insult. Forgive me, my dear, but I can think of none of my acquaintance who should understand this better than you.

In their absence I endeavour make myself usefull, looking over some documents relating to I―’s dispute with Mr T―, that Helios of Engineers, who runs a canal thro’ part of the I― estate. To put it plain, it seems that the Project is more than half a thing of make-work, to provide employment for I―‘s evict’d tenants who cannot now afford the rais’d passage to Nova Scotia, and only secondly one of utility. I― resents everything about it, of course, except the lavish dues he collects, and feuds incessantly with Mr T― & all the while this Father of his Clann, this Paragon of his Sept, this Bastion of Galick Civility ‘gainst the vulgar Mercantilism of the Lowlander, bids the families thrown off their crofts upon the barren Mountain starve, while work stops and the bringing in of Irish Navigators is discuss’d. I of all men admit the need for Agrickultural improvement (tho’ I cannot countenance ‘tis synonymous with a monomanie for Sheep) which has a cost in the displacement of Persons, either to the Lowlands or the Americas; it is the hypocrisy, the Pretention to Antient dutie of care & Superiority to mere men of business, that sticks in the craw―oh, dear Clorinda, I fear I have mounted an Hobby-Horse, even, perhaps, a Pulpit. All know of I―'s deplorable usage of the Fencibles he rais’d―sure did not the Bard of Ayrshire himself satyrize his attempts to have his cake and eat it, or, rather, deprive his hard-prest tenants of it, refusing them either land to farm at home or Liberty to seek their fortune abroad? And the courageous and gentlemanly proceeding of his cousin the Papist Bishop stands an open rebuke to it yet. The Laird's reputation as a Quixote, that before we came here HL accepted as truth if I did not, comprizes none of that knight's benevolence.

Now, what better news have I? Yes―I have made headway with the old blind harper, who will speak to me now in French. I ~~doubt~~ suspect I wrong’d him in my last: his English is in fact brok’n, and he is asham’d of it. He told me a little of the life of his great-uncle, with whom, as with fully a quarter or more of Scotsmen, I share a compleat name. I shall not attempt to transcribe the Gallick of it. This man was the son of a minister of that Establisht Church somewhat fleeting shar’d by England and Scotland after the Restoration; he was born in Moidart a little less than an hundred years ago. He took a situation as an SPCK catechist in Ardnamuchan, where he found his pupils learnt all by rote, and understood nothing, so he set about making a Gallick-English lexicon which is still us’d. In the ’45 he deserted his post to fight with the Jacobite clans, and made himself over entire into a Hieland bard, pouring wrath upon the Hanoverian race, so his late Employers anathematiz'd him for the Obscenity of his Songs. His book of verses―again, I dare not try write the Gallick―but ‘twas immodestly entitled _La Résurrection de la langue ancienne de l’Ecosse_ , & burn'd at the Cross in Edinburgh―and there my informant broke off his story, doubtless so I should call upon him again to-day when all the house is so empty and dull, and he might sing to me his Ancestor's compositions, that sure would be a scandal to the ear of a Sober, well-inclin'd man of the Kirk, could he but understand a word of 'em. And so I shall―& therefore must now myself break off, whilst remaining,

Yours affectionately,

―ALEXANDER

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title, from Allan Ramsey, ['Lochaber no more'](http://www.bartleby.com/360/3/53.html).
> 
> Aeneas Ranaldson Macdonell of Invergarry is a lightly fictionalised [ Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ranaldson_Macdonell).
> 
> The blind harper's great-uncle is [Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair](http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/alasdair-mac-mhaighstir-alasdair).


End file.
